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To cope with his dread, John Kitzhaber opened his leather-bound journal and began to write.
It was a little past 9 on the morning of Nov. 22, 2011. Gary Haugen had dropped his appeals. A Marion County judge had signed the murderer's death warrant, leaving Kitzhaber, a former emergency room doctor, to decide Haugen's fate. The 49-year-old would soon die by lethal injection if the governor didn't intervene.
Kitzhaber was exhausted, having been unable to sleep the night before, but he needed to call the families of Haugen's victims.
"I know my decision will delay the closure they need and deserve," he wrote.
The son of University of Oregon English professors, Kitzhaber began writing each day in his journal in the early 1970s. The practice helped him organize his thoughts and, on that particular morning, gather his courage.
Kitzhaber first dialed the widow of David Polin, an inmate Haugen beat and stabbed to death in 2003 while already serving a life sentence fo…

Georgia executes Travis Hittson

A former Navy crewman was put to death Wednesday in Georgia for killing a fellow sailor whose remains were found buried in two states.

Travis Hittson, 45, was executed by a lethal injection of pentobarbital at 8:14 p.m. at the state prison in Jackson. He was convicted in the April 1992 killing of Conway Utterbeck.

Hittson accepted a final prayer and recorded a final statement, according to the
Georgia Department of Corrections.

On his final day of life, Hittson met with two relatives, four friends and eight
members of his legal team.

Hittson was scheduled to die at 7 p.m. but, as is usually the case, there were
delays while the state waited for all the courts to decide whether the
execution should be stopped.

The State Board of Pardons and Paroles, which is the only entity in Georgia authorized to commute a death sentence, rejected Hittson’s request for clemency after a hearing on the matter Tuesday.

Hittson's lawyers had argued his life should be spared because he's shown great remorse and because Vollmer manipulated him into killing Utterbeck.

SCOTUS denied a stay of execution for Travis Hittson shortly prior to his execution. No dissents were noted.

Hittson was mistreated and neglected as a child and constantly craved the approval of others, his lawyers have said. That, combined with alcoholism and relatively low intelligence, made it easy for his direct supervisor in the Navy, Edward Vollmer, to manipulate him into killing Utterbeck, Hittson’s lawyers argued.

Hittson's lawyers appealed a state court judge's decision, denying a request to throw out Hittson's death sentence. But a Butts County judge denied that request and Hittson's lawyers appealed that decision to the Georgia Supreme Court.

"Mr. Hittson was robbed of a fair and reliable sentencing trial when the prosecutor was permitted to sandbag the defense with the testimony of a state psychologist, Dr. Robert Storms, who revealed off-the-cuff but nevertheless callous statements allegedly made by Mr. Hittson about the victim, during a pre-trial evaluation," the petition said.

During the trial, the trial judge had said he would not let Storms take the stand unless Hittson's lawyers presented psychiatric mitigation evidence during the sentencing phase of the trial, the petition said. Even though Hittson's defense team did not present such evidence, the judge let Storms testify anyway, the petition said.

For this reason, Hittson's defense team "was utterly disarmed by the prosecution's tactic, abetted by the trial court's disregard of both governing law and its own assurances," the petition said.

State lawyers said those arguments have previously been raised and rejected by the courts and are procedurally barred.

Hittson, Utterbeck and Vollmer were stationed in Pensacola, Florida, in April 1992 when they went to Vollmer’s parents’ home in Warner Robins in central Georgia for a weekend.

Hittson told investigators he and Vollmer went out drinking the second night they were there, leaving Utterbeck at the house. As they were driving back to the house, Vollmer told Hittson that Utterbeck planned to kill them both and that they needed to “get him” first, according to court filings.

When they reached the house, where Utterbeck was sleeping in a recliner, Vollmer put on a bulletproof vest and took a sawed-off shotgun and a handgun from his car and gave Hittson an aluminum baseball bat. On Vollmer’s instructions, Hittson hit Utterbeck several times in the head with the bat and then dragged him into the kitchen where Vollmer was waiting, according to court filings. Vollmer stepped on Utterbeck’s hand and Hittson shot him in the head, according to court filings.

Vollmer said they needed to cut up Utterbeck’s body to get rid of the evidence, according to court filings. Hittson told investigators he began to cut the body with a hacksaw but he became sick and Vollmer finished dismembering the body, according to court filings.

They buried Utterbeck’s torso in Houston County in central Georgia and brought the rest of the remains back to Pensacola and buried them there.

When investigators began questioning Utterbeck’s shipmates months later, Hittson confessed and also implicated Vollmer, according to court filings. He led investigators to Utterbeck’s remains and other crime scene evidence.

Hittson was convicted of malice murder, aggravated assault, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime and theft by taking. He was sentenced to death for the malice murder conviction.

Vollmer reached a plea deal and is serving a life sentence. He was denied parole in 1999 and again last year. Reconsideration of his case is set for 2020, parole board spokesman Steve Hayes has said.

Hittson is the 2nd person Georgia has executed in 2 weeks. Brandon Astor Jones,
72, died by lethal injection in the wee hours of Feb. 3 for a 1979 Cobb County
murder. There are at least 3 men who have run out of regular appeals and could
see execution dates set soon.

Hittson becomes the 2nd condemned inmate to be put to death in Georgia this
year and the 62nd overall since the state resumed capital punishment in 1983.
Only Texas (534), Oklahoma (112), Virginia (110, Florida (92) and Missouri (86)
have carried out more executions since the death penalty was re-legalized in
the USA on July 2, 1976.

Hittson becomes the 7th condemned inmate to be put to death this year in the
USA and the 1429th overall since the nation resumed executions on January 17,
1977.

Most Viewed (Last 7 Days)

Organizers of an anti-death penalty coalition say they have delivered over 56,000 petition signatures to New Hampshire Republican Gov. Chris Sununu, urging him to sign a bill to repeal the state’s capital punishment law.
Sununu has vowed to veto the bill, saying he stands with crime victims and members of the law enforcement community.
Before presenting the signatures, the New Hampshire Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty held a news conference Thursday where family members of murder victims spoke in favor of repealing the death penalty.
The bill was passed by the House and Senate.
It is unclear whether they have a two-thirds majority of votes in both chambers, which is needed to override vetoes. Source: The Associated Press, May 17, 2018

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The high school junior accused of gunning down 10 students and teachers at a Santa Fe school is facing a capital murder charge - but he’ll never face the death penalty, even in Texas.
Though Dimitrios Pagourtzis was charged as an adult and jailed without bond, even if he’s found guilty he can’t be sentenced to death because of a 2005 U.S. Supreme Court ruling. And in the Lone Star State, he can’t be sentenced to life without parole as the result of a 2013 law that banned the practice for minors.
“In Texas, after the Supreme Court’s decision, they passed a law that basically says that it’s a life sentence if you’re under 18 at the time of the crime,” said attorney Amanda Marzullo, executive director of Texas Defender Services. “The Court has said that it is cruel and unusual to execute an individual who is under 18 at the time of the offense.”
The Santa Fe High School student admitted to the mass shooting that killed 10 and wounded 10 others early Friday, according to court documents.…

31 years ago, on May 20, 1987, just before midnight, I was sitting in the witness area of the Mississippi Gas Chamber watching someone die in front of me. His name was Edward Earl Johnson.
I am both sad and glad that Edward’s final two weeks, right up to his agonising death, were recorded in Paul Hamann’s extraordinary BBC documentary Fourteen Days in May. Sad, because from time to time I find myself forced to relive that horror, when I watch the film at some public event; glad, because at least Edward’s senseless death has had positive repercussions – the film inspiring many to take up the battle for people in his precarious predicament.
Yet it irks me beyond measure that people who should know better use their position of power to prognosticate that the justice system never executes the innocent. For example, in a case called Kansas v. March, in 2006, U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia loudly proclaimed that there is not “a single case — not one — in which it is clear that a…

How much does the public have a right to know about how the state of Indiana executes people?
It is a question that, effectively, strikes at the heart of capital punishment. And it's the issue in a 4-year-old case in Marion Circuit Court that started with a public records request by Washington attorney A. Katherine Toomey to the Indiana Department of Corrections (DOC).
"If we win ... the Indiana public will know more about one of the most consequential areas of decision making that the state of Indiana engages in," attorney Peter Racher said in an interview.
The state, however, sees it as contrary to a state law limiting what the public can see pertaining to executions. The law was controversial because of how it passed. After midnight on the final day of the 2017 legislative session, it was added to a budget bill, two pages out of 175.
"The budget is now a death penalty bill," Rep. Matt Pierce, D-Bloomington, said at the time. "There's been no public…

The lawyers fighting the death penalty ordered for a former Northmont High School student want the Ohio Supreme Court to reconsider its affirmation of the sentence and scheduling of the execution.
Austin Myers' lawyers said in a motion filed this morning that they want the state's highest court to overturn the conviction and call a new trial "or in the alternative that his sentence be modified to life without parole."
Myers, 23, is still apparently the 2nd youngest on Ohio's death row 3 1/2 years after being sentenced for the murder of childhood friend Justin Back, 18, of Wayne Twp., Warren County.
Last Thursday, the court affirmed the death penalty for Myers, for the stabbing death of Back at his home outside Waynesville in January 2014.
The execution was scheduled for July 20, 2022 in the decision.
Warren County prosecutor David Fornshell was pleased with the 7-0 ruling by the state's highest court.
"The 7-0 decision is always something you like to se…

Defendant claims firefighters didn't try hard enough to extinguish blaze
The nanny responsible for killing 4 members of a family in an arson appeared in court in eastern China on Thursday to appeal her death sentence.
Mo Huanjing, nanny of the family of Lin Shengbin, pleaded guilty to starting the fire. But she said during the appeal at Zhejiang High People's Court that "the penalty in the original ruling was extremely heavy".
"The tragedy wasn't the result I wanted to see," she added. She said the efforts of firefighters were flawed. And she confessed to her offense during the initial interrogation, which could be regarded as a reason to earn a more lenient sentence.
Wu Pengbin, her lawyer, told China Daily that some firefighters and employees of the property management department of Lin's apartment attended the hearing as witnesses at his urging.
"I wanted them to show what they were doing at the time to the court, as I, with my client, thoug…

(CNN) - An Australian woman has been sentenced to death by hanging after a Malaysian court overturned an earlier acquittal of drug smuggling charges.
According to CNN affiliate Sky News, a three-judge panel unanimously threw out the previous ruling in 54-year-old Maria Elvira Pinto Exposto's case.
The grandmother and mother of four was arrested in December 2014 while transiting through the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur on a flight from Shanghai to Melbourne, according to another CNN affiliate, SBS News.
She was found in possession of 1.1 kilos (2.4 lb) of crystal methamphetamine and faced a mandatory death penalty under Malaysia's draconian drugs laws.
Exposto claimed she had no knowledge of the drugs in her bag and had been scammed by a boyfriend she met online.
According to SBS, Exposto's lawyers said she had gone to Shanghai to file documents in relation to her boyfriend's retirement from service in the US army. When she left China, Exposto claimed she was handed …

To cope with his dread, John Kitzhaber opened his leather-bound journal and began to write.
It was a little past 9 on the morning of Nov. 22, 2011. Gary Haugen had dropped his appeals. A Marion County judge had signed the murderer's death warrant, leaving Kitzhaber, a former emergency room doctor, to decide Haugen's fate. The 49-year-old would soon die by lethal injection if the governor didn't intervene.
Kitzhaber was exhausted, having been unable to sleep the night before, but he needed to call the families of Haugen's victims.
"I know my decision will delay the closure they need and deserve," he wrote.
The son of University of Oregon English professors, Kitzhaber began writing each day in his journal in the early 1970s. The practice helped him organize his thoughts and, on that particular morning, gather his courage.
Kitzhaber first dialed the widow of David Polin, an inmate Haugen beat and stabbed to death in 2003 while already serving a life sentence fo…

Concerns about Texas' dwindling lethal injection supplies coupled with questions about the age of the drugs have some advocates wondering whether the state is prepared to humanely carry out its recent uptick in scheduled executions.
Texas currently has 8 death dates and 9 doses of its execution drug - compounded sodium pentobarbital - for use in the Huntsville death chamber. What's more, a string of contradictory records from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice raises questions about whether some of those doses could be 3 years old, far older than previously reported and old enough that experts worry it could increase the chances of a "torturous" execution.
"The older the drug the greater the likelihood of a botched execution. Period," said Maurie Levin, a death penalty lawyer with experience in lethal injection litigation. "It becomes contaminated, corrupted, impotent, and all of those things can lead to a torturous execution."
In response …

Texas executed Juan Castillo, who said he was innocent, for 2003 San Antonio murder
A Texas death row inmate was executed Wednesday — his 4th execution date in a year. Though advocates and his attorneys insisted on Juan Castillo's innocence, he lost all his fights in court and was put to death for a 2003 San Antonio murder.
Juan Castillo was put to death Wednesday evening, ending his death sentence on his 4th execution date within the year.
The 37-year-old was executed for the 2003 robbery and murder of Tommy Garcia Jr. in San Antonio.
The execution had been postponed three times since last May, including a rescheduling because of Hurricane Harvey.
Castillo's advocates and attorneys had insisted on his innocence in Garcia’s murder, pleading unsuccessfully for a last-minute 30-day stay of execution from Republican Gov. Greg Abbott after all of his appeals were rejected in the courts.
The Texas Defender Service, a capital defense group who had recently picked up Castillo’s cas…

DPN opposes the death penalty in all cases, unconditionally, regardless of the method chosen to kill the condemned prisoner. The death penalty is inherently cruel and degrading, an archaic punishment that is incompatible with human dignity. To end the death penalty is to abandon a destructive diversionary and divisive public policy that is not consistent with widely held values. The death penalty not only runs the risk of irrevocable error, it is also costly to the public purse as well as in social and psychological terms.The death penalty has not been proved to have a special deterrent effect. It tends to be applied in a discriminatory way on grounds of race and class. It denies the possibility of reconciliation and rehabilitation. It prolongs the suffering of the murder victim's family and extends that suffering to the loved ones of the condemned prisoner. It diverts resources that could be better used to work against violent crime and assist those affected by it. Death Penalty News is a privately owned, non-profit organization. It is based in Paris, France.Your donations to Death Penalty News DO make a difference.